«Laft Pound's future.»
Holding the baronet's hair, Klein closed his eyes and, aided by meditation, entered a slumber.
In the gray, hazy world, he saw a narrow, irregularly shaped opening. Laft Pound, his eye bags swollen and temples gray, crawled out, propping himself up on his elbows like a reptile.
Immediately after, the scene shifted. From somewhere, he took a black iron emblem and pinned it to his chest.
Carved onto that emblem was a scepter and a hand tightly gripping it!
«Tudor!» Klein abruptly woke from his dream, sitting bolt upright.
According to Miss Bodyguard's introduction, the black iron emblem was carved with the royal crest of the Fourth Epoch Tudor Empire!
It was exactly the same as what he had seen in that ancient building!
«Laft Pound is definitely not as simple as he appeared before...» Klein rubbed his forehead and muttered to himself.
As a ‘Seer’, he had his own interpretation of the revelation he had just seen in the dream. On one hand, he knew it was an action Laft Pound would take in the future. On the other hand, he believed it indicated that Laft Pound himself had a deep connection with the Tudor family!
After the triple test of a direct question, ‘Dream Walking’, and ‘Spirit Communication’, Laft Pound hadn't revealed any problems, nor had I detected any abnormality. If I hadn't kept a trump card, I'm afraid he would have deceived me... Mm... Perhaps, perhaps right now he truly doesn't know anything, that was his true nature acting, and only in the future will he encounter a chance opportunity and establish a connection with the Tudor family...
But the greater possibility is that he has already learned a lot from the Old Viscount. Before he was certain, he deliberately degenerated, playing crazy and dumb, and what fooled my ‘Dream Walking’ and ‘Spirit Communication’ must be the effect of some extraordinary ability. Hmph... he probably wasn't performing back then, he was truly in a confounded state, otherwise he would have slipped up long ago in front of someone as experienced as me...
What kind of extraordinary ability would that be?
What Sequence is he?
Or is he someone naturally gifted with a certain kind of extraordinary ability?
Klein continued thinking along these lines, feeling he had hit a dead end. He hurriedly pulled himself out of it, changed his perspective, and silently muttered: «Laft Pound has a deep connection with the Tudor family...»
«Can I make a bold assumption, that he is actually a descendant of the Tudor family?»
«If his blood relation to the Old Viscount is real, then things are interesting.»
«Is the entire Pound family a branch of the Tudor family that changed their names and surnames to escape persecution?»
«They established meritorious service, obtained a title, and gradually returned to the center of power. At the same time, they were secretly looking for the secret ruins left behind by the Tudor Empire in
«After who knows how many years, they finally made a breakthrough, so they bought the house currently belonging to Miller Carter and built an exaggerated basement to explore the surrounding area.»
«Thirty or forty years ago, they found the ruins and built a secret door leading there.»
«However, during the exploration of the ruins, an accident occurred. The evil spirit did not recognize the so-called descendants of the Tudor family at all. The Old Viscount's two heirs died one after the other in the innermost room, and even the Beyonder characteristics and mystical items couldn't be rescued.»
«Although the Old Viscount paid a huge price to buy similar Beyonder characteristics, making the deaths of the two heirs appear relatively normal, the consecutive violent deaths were still somewhat suspicious in the eyes of the royal family and the Church. Therefore, after the Old Viscount's death, Laft Pound deliberately exaggerated and distorted the secret investigations of the past, ‘scaring’ himself into having psychological problems, and began to indulge in drinking and gambling, thus avoiding attention.»
«This explains something I found puzzling before. A dignified viscount's family was actually controlled by a mysterious person out of nowhere. Do they think the royal family and the Church are blind? Even if they wanted to control them, they would use a softer, less detectable method, like the Sequence 6 of my Pathway, ‘Faceless’.»
«Even a child could detect the anomaly, let alone the experts of the royal family and the three major Churches?»
«The only reason they ‘didn't know’ is that those people were sent by them.»
«Hmm... I guessed that the Tudor family and the
«‘Sequence 9 of the ‘Black Emperor’ pathway is ‘Lawyer’. It is a Beyonder profession that excels at exploiting order. Hmph... Laft Pound's ability to deceive ‘Dream Walking’ and ‘Spirit Communication’ comes from this, or perhaps something higher? He cooperated with me fully, but in the dream and confounded state, he instinctively exploited loopholes in order, making the results develop in the direction he wanted.»
«If you think about it carefully, during the ‘Spirit Communication’, Laft Pound really didn't seem to lie. It's just that the truth was only partial... ‘Maintaining the family, remembering the glory’ could refer to the Pound family or the Tudor family...»
Klein's thoughts gradually became clearer, and he formed an overall judgment of the matter: Judging from Laft Pound's current attitude, without external help, the evil spirit probably can't break free. Otherwise, the baronet would have already found a way to save himself. Regardless of whether the evil spirit comes for him or not, as soon as it breaks the seal and creates a disaster, the matters of the underground ruins will be revealed to the royal family and the Church. By then, Laft will inevitably be implicated... The opposite room collapsed, but it didn't affect the power binding the evil spirit. This shows that as long as the innermost room isn't directly destroyed, the evil spirit cannot break free...
Mm... the plan is clear. Find Kaspars and buy some explosives. Collapse the entrance so no one can enter, and let the evil spirit be buried underground forever. Hah, once I'm strong enough, I can consider dealing with it and completely eliminate this threat for the citizens of Backlund, and gain some valuables in the process...
However, what's the safest way to blast? I don't know a thing about it... Maybe Kaspars knows an expert in explosions? After all, he is a black market arms dealer.
Klein quickly finalized the plan, deciding to find Kaspars again tomorrow evening and strive to completely resolve the matter of the underground ruins within the week.
As for the real relationship between the Pound family and the Tudor family, and Laft Pound's abnormality, he had no intention of digging deeper.
«Doesn't concern me!» Klein muttered, quickly sinking into the gray fog and returning to the real world.
…………
Friday morning, Klein still went out early, pretending to be very busy.
As it turned out, he once again arrived at the Cragg Club, practiced shooting, and read newspapers, passing the time quite comfortably.
During afternoon tea time, he, who had been loitering here for almost the entire day, was about to leave when he unexpectedly saw Mary Gail, his former employer, and